


six songs no one in Wilco ever wrote

by AstoriaRoss



Category: Wilco
Genre: Gen, M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension, five things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-17
Updated: 2011-06-17
Packaged: 2017-10-20 12:19:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/212715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstoriaRoss/pseuds/AstoriaRoss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just what the title says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	six songs no one in Wilco ever wrote

_no one belongs here more than you_

There were some songs that Jeff has maybe written about you, but as far as you're concerned, those songs could be about anyone. The two of you were never in love. You were never anything, really, other than some guys in a band that worked hard and played harder. It was easy to see things that weren't there and easy to overlook the things that were, when you spent seventeen hours a day on a bus alternately wanting to be alone and be in conversation.

But there’s times when the air rushes out of you all at once: squished in a corner of a van with hard plastic on one side of you and Jeff humming on the other, his thigh against yours; or tiny green rooms where everyone’s coming back down and Jeff’s fingers on your shoulder are tapping out guitar work to the song that’s still in your head and he knows it.

So sometimes it's hard when Jeff looks at you, like you might have to look away suddenly and rub your fingers over the sparkle finish of the snare drum to make the pieces of yourself that are drifting apart start to snap back into place.

 

 _montana's on fire_

Next to you, Jeff is looking out the window of the bus, presumably watching the scenery roll by in the dark, but you can see the gears shifting in his head - and besides, the view hasn't changed in twenty miles or so. Across the table, Glenn is asleep, his head on one arm stretched out in your direction, a couple playing cards still stuck in his limp hand. You reach out and retrieve them, then gather up the rest from where they’re scattered. There’s no sound except for wheels on pavement and Glenn’s even breathing. It’s well past midnight.

Jeff gives up on the lack of view and turns back around. “Montana’s on fire,” he says with a shrug and a wry smile, clicking his pen on and finding a fresh page in his battered notebook. Then he stops and shoves Glenn’s arm a little more out of the way.

“On fire, huh?” you say. You slide around the curved bench so Jeff can lean against you. He looks like he’s about to fall over sideways. Glenn mutters something in his sleep and pulls both his arms in under his head. Jeff puts the cap back on his pen.

 

 _one thing at a time_

Sometimes you wonder if it’s an unspoken rock-and-roll cliché. Instead of sex with big-haired women in backstage dressing rooms, it’s sex with one of your bandmates on the tour bus. Everything happens on the tour bus: personal revelations, losing eight rounds of MarioCart in a row, messy breakups via cellphone, losing nine games of Scrabble (Deluxe Travel Edition) in a row, sickness and health and creation. You’re pretty sure that Jeff had asked Sue to marry him on a tour bus, although that was before your time and could be one of the Uncle Tupelo legends John likes to tell when he’s had too much to drink and the two of you are hiding in his bunk with yet another bottle of Jack Daniels, usually right before you take your clothes off. The bunks aren’t really built for it, and it takes a conscious effort not to run your elbows into the wall, which is sometimes hard when the whisky has taken effect and you can barely get your shirt over your head. You’re pretty sure the idea of big-haired women in backstage dressing rooms is not appealing to you, but John’s hands on your back are a different story.

 

 _mistook for a kiss_

It wasn't until years later that you could identify what it was: a breakup. Yeah, so, you'd always kind of referred to it as Jay breaking up with the band, but once it clicked you couldn't stop thinking of it as Jay breaking up with _you_.

You almost wanted to call him but you didn’t. Thinking that maybe you’d see him in town some day was one thing, calling him was another. Besides, you only had his mom’s number.

You let Scott write the song you can’t, all angry breaking-up-with-the-band lyrics with heavy pounding bass, but it never gets recorded. Scott gives you the only paper copy of the song, the only physical proof - Glenn’s drumbeat notes don’t count because he likes to reimagine things anyway – and says in his usual offhand manner that it’s not goofy enough to be a Minus Five song anyway.

That works for you, and you put the lyrics in the big metal filing cabinet at home. You and Scott write another song that’s properly Minus Five. No one mentions the band breakup song you didn’t write, at least until you go back to Belleville and the smell of charcoal is in the air.

 

 _down volume_

You get to the loft early, before anyone else, and spend twenty minutes tinkering with the bell you’d constructed the night before, clamping it to your kit in a few different spots before you’re finally satisfied with the order and placement of things.

John shows up next, yawning, with a cup of coffee in each hand. “Thanks,” you mumble with a grin.

He shrugs and you take a sip. He’d been at your house until three last night, the two of you with the TV turned low in the basement so Miiri could sleep, fiddling with your boxes of found items and scrap metal until something came together. “Want to try it out?” He gestures at the bell, then moves to lift the strap of his bass over his head.

“Unplugged?” you suggest, before he can get the guitar settled.

“That’s probably better anyway,” he replies, and the two of you brush past each other in opposite directions.

You watch him swap the electric for the upright and feel slightly guilty. “You didn’t have to stay so late last night,” you say sheepishly, ducking your head.

John grins, a wide open gesture not many people get to see. “I know.”

 

 _come back new_

Sometimes you know you’re hard to comprehend. You’re used to being misunderstood and over-analyzed, all at the same time. It happens in _Rolling Stone_ , in _Filter_ , in whatever publication is reviewing whatever album this week. People who don’t know you trying to come up with an explanation for the lyrics you’ve written – some people would let that bother them but you’ve been doing this so long that it barely brushes against your radar anymore. Maybe just a flicker on the edge of the sweep, gone before it can register completely. Other things require your attention.

“I didn’t think we were that big of a deal,” you tell John as you and he walk up and down the aisles of the grocery store. It’s early enough that there’s only a handful of shoppers besides the two of you, and he’s not buying anything anyway. You stop and contemplate the Cheerios for a minute. Let your arm rest against John’s. The program’s only touchy-feely if you want it to be and while you trust the docs, they’re not the band, not the guys who know you backwards and forwards and even upside-down.

John nods. He hasn’t said much. He knows the difference.


End file.
